MTN Ghana raises Gh₡1.1 billion but misses share sale target

Graphic Online Business News Aug - 30 - 2018 , 13:06

MTN Ghana raised Gh₡1.1 billion ($236 million) selling about a third of the shares the mobile telecommunication company made available in an initial public offering (IPO).

According to a report by Bloomberg, MTN, Africa’s biggest mobile-phone company by subscribers, sold 1.5 billion securities of the 4.6 billion shares at 75 pesewas each when it offered a 35 percent stake in the unit in May, Blooimberg quoted a document it had seen in relation to the IPO.

The shares will be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange with trading due to start September 5, 2018 according to the sale’s prospectus.

A spokeswoman for MTN Ghana declined to comment when Bloomberg contacted her.

Even though MTN failed to sell all the shares on offer, the proceeds are more than three times larger than the previous biggest IPO in Ghana, when Agricultural Development Bank Limited raised Ghc₡326 million in December 2016.

The IPO result comes as MTN fights a surprise order late Wednesday from Nigeria’s central bank to refund $8.1 billion it says was repatriated improperly from the country over eight years through 2015.

The Johannesburg-based company sold shares in Ghana to meet conditions agreed to with the government in 2015, when it acquired the right to use spectrum for fourth-generation wireless services. MTN has set 10 percent of the target as the minimum requirement to complete the sale.

Credit: Bloomberg